All posts for the month February, 2014

Unfortunately the only performance is a giant tragedy that never seems to end. The actors are all done up with their make-up and grease paint and we the audience sit by the glow of our computer screens reading and watching as the play is acted out. There is no intermission, no chance to step away from it and take a breather. We are subjected to an endless variety of war, murder, rape, mutilation and sadness. That’s all within the first five minutes. This group hates that group, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, soldiers and civilians dying for some ideology that is beyond their control, governments spying on their own citizens to keep them “safe”. It has all the trappings of an Irwin Allen movie, but there are no B-rated stars to look upon. We only have the faces of the injured or dead. They say plenty, but somehow no-one seems to listen. The leaders of the world all seem to be interested in making political and power moves rather than trying to fix the problems facing their respective countries. They are all playing their parts to perfection, unfortunately.

What part do we as a nation have in this giant cluster fuck of a production? Well we are the protagonist. We are the star. The blue-eyed bombshell who makes her way directly to the spotlight. We have the potential to make you laugh and make you cry and make you mad as hell. All other characters flow through us. Some wait for our lead to say their lines and some try to be an upstart and trample over our dialogue. We are not perfect, but with the right motivation, we can be the best actor out there. What is our motivation you may ask? Well sadly most of the time it is the all mighty dollar. We take that concept and run with it full force. It morphs our character in to this ugly, bent old man much like Dickens’ Scrooge. Our monologue is filled with words such as NSA, terrorism, freedom, drones and safety. The words have changed over the years, replace terrorist with communist and NSA with FBI. However, the tone is the same. When we are motivated by the good and the generosity that this country possesses, we become the best actor on the stage. We need to be leading the way, showing the others how to learn their lines and how to make their audience laugh instead of making them cry. I still have hope that this will happen. It will happen with the youth of this country. I am a strong believer of how the next generations will improve things and clean up the act of past performers. It takes time, just like all things, and in the end we will become a stronger nation for it.

For my final act, I would like to talk about the role of the audience in this production. That’s right, you and me. We are the critics. We are the ones who can change the actors on the stage and even change the scenery and backdrop if we want to. We do that with voicing our opinions, by writing editorials, by standing up for what is right and good about this country. The pen is mightier than the sword. I should up date this to say that the keystroke is mightier than the drone. We watch from a distance and feel helpless. Don’t. Write your congressman, write your president and let them know how you feel. If enough people stand up and say we want REAL hope and change, I think they might actually listen. I mean they don’t want to lose their part in the play. I don’t want to make this so America-centric. This can be done on the world’s stage as well. To quote the movie “Network”, “we are all mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore”. Write them and be the critic to the drama that is playing before you.

Well that is how I am feeling anyway. I have been meaning to post something on this blog not just to try and entertain the masses, but to kindle some sort of spark of creativity in myself. I am hoping by the very act of writing and stringing together some thoughts, I can reignite something in myself that will take my mind away from the day to day thoughts that consume me. These are not thoughts of sadness and despair, but of just the day to day drudgery that is life. Maybe it isn’t even correct to call them thoughts. Maybe it is more of a lack of thinking and lack of feeling than anything else. There is a fog that surrounds my brain that sends me down the road with a type of cruise control. I find as I get older, that the random ideas and creative thoughts of my youth have been replaced with thoughts of how fast can I get home and turn off my brain, escape work and life. I feel like a sheep that has this large, rabid border collie that is directing me from field to field. I can’t stray from the path or I will get my ankles nipped. I know this is controlled by me. I am the one who can change that path, the one who can take the road less traveled. It becomes harder with age. You put more filters and blinders on the older you get. You strain out things that do not feel like they pertain to you as you move further away from them . What I mean as we get older, most of us, lose that drive, that reckless abandon that we had in our youth. We move more towards a comfort zone that keeps us feeling safe. It separates us from the world with this granite wall that nothing can cross over. We allow nothing new in and in turn, let nothing new out.

These are First World Problems I know. I have the luxury of not having to worry about my next meal or where the rent will come from. However, they are still there, churning and swirling like this maelstrom that is pulling me closer to its center. Some say religion is the solution. Some say psychology. Hell, maybe I just need a vacation. I just don’t know. I would love to feel things again like I did when I was younger. I would love to see the world with some sense of wonder and feel lost in the complexity that is my relationship with the world and my place in it. Maybe I will find it again one day. Maybe writing these lines will resuscitate the younger me that is hiding in this 43 year old body. We will have to wait and see!

When I was a kid, I loved auto racing. IndyCar, NASCAR, Sprint Car, any of it. I especially liked Formula One. Why, I’m not entirely sure. It was more than just a preference for open wheeled race cars, cause I had that in Indy. I suppose it became my favorite because it was so exotic. The races were held in faraway locales such Monaco, Brazil, and even Japan. Also, the drivers were, with one exception, from outside the USA and spoke with strange accents. Looking back, I guess it was my own desire for something different from my hum-drum little Southern town which fueled it.

That all changed as I got into my teenage years. As I got older, I lost interest in a lot of things I’d previously been passionate about and found new hobbies. That’s a natural part of growing up, I’d say. Then Gillies Villeneuve, my favorite F1 driver, got killed during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. That put a real damper on my enthusiasm for the sport. A little while later, I attended a NASCAR race with my Dad and his buddies, which turned out to the last straw. I was bored to tears watching cars go around in circles without the TV commentary to hold my attention. I completely quit following any kind of racing after that.

That all changed this past Fall when the Ron Howard film Rush came out. While I was too young to remember the events in the film, they took place only a couple of years before I fell in love with racing as a small child. I remembered both James Hunt and Niki Lauda from when they were on the F1 circuit. The movie captured perfectly the feel and the look of the Formula One racing of my childhood and got me curious about the sport again.

To say things had changed in the intervening 30+ years is an understatement! Most of the teams I remembered were gone and the cars were radically different in look and sound from the late ’70’s/early ’80’s when I’d last watched. And to say the technology behind the sport had changed exponentially would be an understatement.

I’d come in to the 2013 season with only a few races left. By that point, it wasn’t a matter of if three-time defending champ Sebastian Vettel would clinch a fourth title as much as when. He did so soon afterward, going on to win 13 of sixteen races last year; including all of the final eight. Oh, no, I thought: is it always going to be this one-sided? Not to fear, I was told! 2014 was bringing a host of rules and regulation changes which would shake things up.

So now, the new year is upon us and the new regulations are in force. They include changes to the type of engines used (V8’s are out, turbocharged V6’s are in), fuel flow restrictions, and new minimum weight requirements amongst a host of others. The most noticeable change to the casual observer has been to the nose of car, with the maximum height being lowered from 550mm to 185mm. This, along with other changes to reduce downforce, has led to some rather… interesting… nose designs.

For comparison, this is what an F1 car looked like in 2013:

Fernando Alsono driving the Ferrari F138 in the wet.

The front end was pretty much a straight plane which, depending on the car, reminded me of an ironing board or a surf board. The front wings were generally attached below the nose to allow for maximum air under the chassis, and thus maximize downforce. (I’ll probably be corrected on that by someone more fluent in the sport and it’s aerodynamics.)

To comply with the new regulations, yet still allow enough air to flow under the chassis to maximize downforce, F1 designers have come up with some… creative… designs. Some would say, rather phallic one’s in fact. Take the Toro Rosso STR9:

Yes, folks; that’s a giant blue penis on the front of the car! Here’s a closer look:

Top Gear has already made the obvious joke: you wouldn’t want to be rear-ended by that!

At least the Marussia designers managed to camouflage it’s… appendage… within the livery. At a distance, you don’t notice it’s manly qualities quite as much. If fact, it’s one of the nicer looking cars in this coming year’s field:

Not all the cars look like they’re competing in a dick measuring contest, however. The McLaren MP4-29 looks more like a Proboscis Monkey than a porno actor:

Separated at birth?

Unless you view it from above, in which case it’s definitely flipping you off:

But, this isn’t a complete sausage party. A few teams took a different tack. None more so than Lotus did with their E22. The only word I can use to describe it is “cameltoe”:

Ferrari also took a different take on the new regs. It’s mostly drawn comparisons to an anteater:

Ferrari was always my favorite F1 team and, to me at least, they’ve always had the best looking cars. But not this year. That thing is just ugly! Even their lead driver thinks so.

Mercedes took a similar approach with it’s W05, but it’s a bit nicer looking than the Ferrari to me anyway:

At least it doesn’t already look like it’s had it’s nosed pushed in during a front end collision.

And I don’t even want to discuss the monstrosity that is the Caterham CT05:

The less said the better.

But I can’t knock on the entire field. You have to give credit where credit is due and two constructors did manage to come up with a decent looking car and still comply with the new regulations. One is the Williams FW36:

That’s a slick design, if ask me! Unfortunately, it won’t be that nice blue color when the season gets underway. Williams didn’t manage to secure a major sponsor, Martini, until it was almost time to unveil the car. If it looks anything like the fan made liveries produced online, it should still be a great looking ride. Although, it might be added to the BBC list before all is said and done.

The best of the lot, IMHO, is the car that will be driven by Mr. Vettel in his fourth title defense, the Red Bull RB10:

Their nose design is the only one of it’s type that would be permissible in polite society. Also, they took a tip from Marussia and camouflaged it’s John Thomas in the livery. Unfortunately for Red Bull, however; the Renault engine that powers this beauty has had a LOT of issues. Vettel and his teammate only turned in 21 laps over several days of testing a few weeks ago. Twenty-one laps COMBINED. Eek!

As for how these cars will perform, it’s anyone’s guess. Hopefully better than they look. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed that 2015’s designs are patterned after the Red Bull and not the Caterham. I’m planning to blog semi-regularly about Formula One this coming season. Hopefully that will go better than my attempt to do the same thing with baseball did last year.